Another Horsedreamer's Blues
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: What's left of Julie's life is all that she has.


**A/N: This is a song that I found perfect for both Gwen and Julie, but I really felt that since we don't know near as much about Julie than we do about Gwen, Julie would work better for this song.**

**Disclaimer: Song "Another Horsedreamer's Blues" is by Counting Crows. Characters are MOA's. Was originally a songfic. Lyrics have been taken off.**

* * *

_Another Horsedreamer's Blues_

I sat on the couch, eyes narrowed at the tv screen, waiting for results to show up. I waited patiently. I had people to pay off. I had a life that was lived by the money that changed hands. I needed this win. I needed to get my short little pay day. One day a hero's girlfriend, the next a piece of trash in my house waiting for the phone to ring and for another bill to come in the mail, mocking me with every new stamp I saw.

Results were sliding across the bottom of the screen before I knew it.

"Shit," I hissed, throwing down the bottle that had been in my hand. My lips had curled up into a snarl and I felt the glass embed itself in my foot. I didn't feel any pain. Just glass in my foot. Pain had ebbed away what seemed like ages ago. I really couldn't feel anything anymore. Just the natural ache of sickening disappointment that kept racing through my system.

There are days where I never moved off the couch. There were days where the tv was left on all night. There were days when I lost the last of the money my parents had sent me before I was cut off.

Facing the facts, I realized there was never a day that I had won.

The glass in my foot wasn't even a bother. I didn't think it would be.

I stand up and all the papers on my table slide off, scattering across the floor, covering up the new stain of alcohol on the carpet and hiding the shards of glass that are spread all over. "Fuck you, you damn horses," I spat, the tv screen's flickering now mocking me as all the losing horses raced by the finish line.

All the ones I had bet on.

This was the way I was making my profits. And I had only been losing what little cash I had. I had been losing for so long now. Just another loss. Just another day of disappointment. Another dull ache that ate away at me day by day. I gave up. I just shook my head and started laughing, stepping in more glass the whole time. All I could feel was the disappointment. And I smiled really wide. "Fuck you too, world."

I should've changed my name and moved away into a tiny condo instead of this house. The house was a haunting home of memories of me and Ben working out perfectly the way it should've been until he became a damn jerk that killed that connection we had. And I felt the same pain return to my senses. Nothing was hurting. Nothing physical at least.

The glass beneath my feet was spreading my dark crimson blood across the carpet. I can see it in the faint light that my damn tv casts. And it felt good to see the pain since I couldn't feel it anymore.

The replay of the horses ran across the screen. And they were all bright blue, the same shade as the sky that I never saw anymore.

I looked around, my face twisted into a smiling grimace. This was my life now. I embraced it with every opportunity I got. The pain was a perfect escape from life. The drinking had become a bad habit to dull my inhibitions. It made my job as a hooker so much easier. Turns out that Asian girls get paid better too. That was all that I cared about.

And now all that money was racing down the toilet along with those bright blue horses that pelted across my tv screen at the speed of light, confusing me with their colorful coats and intoxicating numbers.

This could last forever and it could last a day. It could last my entire lifetime and it could last mere moments in the shadows of my life, but there were no questions that I would die alone and live alone. My money was dwindling down to nothing. I had no cash left in the bank. I was in debt to everyone I had ever known. Especially Kevin.

The damn con-artist had come out in him once again and he had made about twenty thousand dollars off of me in mere minutes. Damn con-artists.

I just wanted to please everyone. I did everything Ben said. I gave him his son. I gave him his daughter. I gave him the life I would never have. I gave him my life. I gave him my heart and my soul and my body and he used me. He used me and then threw me out, leaving me here to rot in a prison of my own making.

I never saw the kids I gave birth to. I never heard a word from Ben. And I never even got a bit of money from the divorce, goddamn it. I gave him the world he could only imagine in his dreams and I got left behind for a Native American girl that was as useless as a piece of rotting horse shit on the side of the fucking Route 66.

The blood stain was growing bigger with every second. My smiling grimace was still on my face. The bright blue horses still raced across my screen, mocking me in my eternal failure.

I felt my mind going foggy and I could only feel my body falling. My head hit against something hard and I felt my blood welling there. I felt the carpet becoming even more soaked beneath me. I began laughing. Hard. I couldn't stop myself. I just laughed. It felt good. It fixed the pain I was feeling. And I knew I wasn't going to be around much longer now. Broke and dying in my own filth.

And I kept laughing. I felt like I was going to explode. It was just hilarious how the irony of the world always falls into place at the last moments as you can realize it. And before you can do anything, your life is flashing before your eyes and all you know is laughing and crying and wondering if you can take care of them from above or below and I just laughed so hard. It was like my lungs would explode at any moment they wanted to. I just couldn't help myself.

I had always said to fuck the world.

But it was really all _my_ fault.

My eyes fluttered shut and I could hear the cheers of the crowd coming from the television and the announcers calling out the winners of the race again and again and again. My personal torment ensued. The carpet beneath me was now stained a scarlet shade. My clothes were soaked. I couldn't care less. I just kept on laughing.

I hope Ben took care of the kids. If he didn't, he could probably figure out who'd be haunting his every last move.

The darkness crept in. The voices dimmed. I opened my eyes and stared at the screen one last time tonight.

And the bright blue horses raced past my eyes, their shining coats glittering like dying stars in the dawn sky.

* * *

**A/N: If you get the basic point of the song through the lyrics, it's just a really depressing song. But I highly recommend that you listen to it now that you've read it.**

**~Sky**


End file.
